


The Mark of Cain

by Aria_i_Adagio



Series: Whatever I've Done - First Draft [6]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Female Apprentice, Multi, OT3, Recovered Memories, poly route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-20 01:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15522960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aria_i_Adagio/pseuds/Aria_i_Adagio
Summary: The Asra/Julian route continues, covering the events of Justice and the Hanged Man.





	1. Martyr Complex

**Author's Note:**

> There is canonical MCD, but you know that.

“Guilty.”

I stagger behind the curtains in the back of the Countess's box.  The ringing in my ears grows, drowning out the roars of the assembled crowd. I reach for the wall to steady myself against, but not quickly enough to stop my knees from giving out beneath me.

“Dema!” Asra seems alarmed about something. His voice seems far away.  Then his arms are crashing me, propping me upright against his chest.

Someone with an imperious voice calls for water.  What good will water do?

I turn my head, hiding my face against Asra's neck. 

Julian found something in the dungeon. Something that led him to run to Countess, proclaiming his guilt for a murder that we'd already established that he didn't commit.  Something that outweighed his claims to desire a future. What it is, I still don't know.

 

~~~

 

Asra and I went to the dungeons before the Coliseum the morning after Julian's surprise confession.  A token from Nadia got us past the guards. Julian was pacing in a cell as much as possible with a manacle connecting him to a wall and carrying on a conversation with himself.  Multiple emotions crossed his face as we pushed open the door and enter the cell, but it's Asra who truly surprised me. He closed the distance between him and Julian in two steps and pulled him into an embrace.

“Ilya, you fucking idiot.”  Asra’s voice was surprisingly tender, enough so to make “idiot” sound like a pet name.

Julian was still, in shock, for a moment, then slowly - not quite awkwardly - returned Asra's embrace.  He looked over to me, eyes pleading for something. Then, he caught sit if the open door to the cell, schooled his face into a villainous expression, and pushed Asra away.  

“Come to get my confession before the trial?”

I kicked the door shut and warded it.  I took Asra's hand in mine. He looked hurt, but unsurprised at being shoved away.  “Drop the act, Julian.”

“And what if everything you think is built on an act?  You don't know the real me - what I've done!” He looked away from us and pressed his face into the stone wall.  “I've brought nothing but misfortune. Especially to you. To both of you. You should never have met me.”

I pulled him away from the wall, forcing him to sit down on a bench, so that I could reach his hair and run my fingers through it in an attempt to soothe him. “But we did.”

“I only bring disaster.”

“You can't continue blaming yourself for everything.”

“Even when it's my fault.”  He dropped his head forward, leaning against my breast. “I should have done something, anything, instead I let you . . .”  His voice trailed off. I looked over at Asra, hoping for some help, but his expression had hardened. I lifted Julian's head from my chest, cupping his face in my hands.

“Julian, what did you find in that dungeon?”

“In my old office? I, umm.”  Julian's uncovered eye went wide with fright as Asra cleared his throat on the other side if the small cell.  “No, that's all you’ll get from me, Dema. Come on, don't you want to hear about how I killed Count Lucio?”

“Dammit, Julian!”  I turned away from him and grabbed Asra's hand.  “Fine. I'll go find it myself.”

“Wait, wait, no - you can't go down there!”  He grabbed the hem of my skirt. I turned back, only to see the most lost of expressions on his face.  My heart broke. Not my resolve.

“Please, don't go down there. It's dangerous. You could get sick, and I can't, I can't possibly.  Asra, talk some sense into her!”

Asra met his panicked entreaty with an inscrutable expression.

Julian turned back to me, looking more desperate now.  “Besides, the key didn't work for you. Just me. You can't possibly be as bad as me.”

“You don't know that!  I don't know that! For all I know, I murdered the damned count!”

“No.” Julian and Asra responded simultaneously.

“What? All of us are missing memories. Based on what little I know, I could have done it.  Unless one - or both - of you is keeping back something that rules out that possibly.”

Julian and Asra stared at each other across the room.  Finally, Julian looked back at me, tears forming in his eye.  He tugged at my skirt, pulling me to him and clutching me in a tight embrace. “I have loved you for so long.”

Asra wrapped one arm around my waist, and with his other hand, he rubbed Julian's shoulder.  “You don't have to die to be forgiven, Ilya.” His voice was soft. “I don't understand what you're doing.”

“I -- no.” Julian sat up and pushed me away from him, into Asra's arms. “Both of you should go. Just leave me to fate. It's better this way.”

I shook my head. “I can't believe that. I have to get enough evidence to exonerate you.”

“Asra,” Julian's voice cracked in desperation. “Don't let her go.  She could get hurt!”

I broke the wards on the door and left the cell, waiting for Asra to follow.  He lingered, conversing with Julian, too quietly for me to overhear what of between them.  Finally, he pressed his forehead to Julian's and stood up, following me to the hallway. The look he gave me communicated that he agreed with Julian.

“I'm going.” I said it loud enough for both of them to hear and stride down the corridor, hoping that I project more confidence than I feel.

Julian's protests followed me down the corridor, but there was no choice.  He was not going to die for a murder he didn't commit. He was not going to die at all.

 

~~~

 

As we walked back to the palace, Asra tried to talk me out of going down into the crypt.  He protested that Julian was right - I could get hurt. There was something dangerous down there.  If it jogged Julian’s memories, what if it triggered mine and it was too much and...

I ignored him.  All I could think of were the tears in Julian's eye and his whispered words, “I have loved you for so long.”   _ So long. _  So there was something behind my feelings that I had known him before, a reason why I understood endearments in a language I didn't speak.  I have forgotten you and loved you for  _ so long _ .

Asra caught my shoulder in the library as I reach for the trick books, turning me about to look at him. “Are you sure?”

“Do you know what I'll find down there?”

He shook his head, violet eyes solemn.  “No. But it won't be anything good.”

“I have to know, Asra.”

He kissed my forehead, then my mouth.  “I'm coming with you then, dear heart.”

A muffled laugh startled us both.  Behind us was a tall, pale figure wearing some sort of horned headdress and a surgical mask.  Quaestor Valdemar - I remembered them from when Nadia introduced me to the courtiers. Yesterday Julian has said they are his old boss, during the time of the plague. And, he had spoken of them with a shudder.

“Young love, how precious, how fragile!  Now you wouldn't be trying to get down into my theater would you?”

Theater?  The crypt from yesterday? 

Asra’s gaze was steely, and he remained silent.  He hand remained holding onto my wrist. He would go with me, but he wasn't about to facilitate more than he must.  I gathered myself and looked Valdemar’s unblinking red eyes.

“Yes, I'm looking for more information about Jul - Dr. Devorak’s work.”

“Dr. Devorak . . . Oh yes, Dr. No. 069.  Well, you must let me give you the full tour.  It's ages since I've taken anyone down!”

From the bone saws still covered in dried gore to the pit of skittering red beetles, the lower dungeon was a nightmare.  All made worse by Valdemar's nostalgic reflections on vivisection. Asra gasped when they opened the beetle pit and placed himself between me and the insects, defensive magic already sparking at his fingertips.  Finally, Valdemar showed us Julian's old office - a cell really, but one that he had somehow managed to make comfortable - and slunk off to some other corner to relieve their glory days of state sponsored torture.

“I can't believe Julian was involved in that.”

Asra picked up a carved wooden raven from one of the shelves and turned it over in his hands.  “During the plague, we all . . . We all did things we aren't proud of.”

There are papers and books scattered over the desk.  An inkwell has been upended, spilling across a half written letter.  What was it like to be shut in here - sick - knowing that death lurked outside, that death approached inside?  A inky handprint stained the surface of the desk. I put my hand over it, stretching my fingers wide in an unsuccessful attempt to span it.  His hands are so much larger than mine. I could almost feel his fingers there, warm and smooth. My magic thrummed in the back of my mind, a not quite ache at the base of my skull, alerting me that there's a memory attached to this place, if I want to reach out for it.

_ The colors of the room wash out as I slip back into the memory.  Julian hunches over his desk, clutching quill pen and muttering to himself. “It isn't working. Nothing is working.”  He looks up. Both of his eyes are stained carmine red and sweat beads on his forehead. Despite that, he's shaking from a chill.  The plague. He was dying from it in the story Muriel told. _

_He stumbles to the city and wraps himself in a blanket, picking up a little carved fix from the shelf.  “You better think of something quickly. And you -” He stretches out on the bed, staying at the ceiling, at nothing. “Is this... Is this how you felt?”  He throws out his arm, knocking the shelf. The raven falls off and knocks him on the head. He sits up, blinking rapidly. “That... That's it!” Grabbing a book from the pile beside his cot, he moves back to the desk, thumbing through the pages excitedly.  As the memory passes, he seizes a piece of chalk_ _and starts etching a symbol onto the wall behind him._

I sat down next to Asra on the cot and touched his hand.  He looked up from the raven that he has been turning over in his hands since before I entered the memory.  There's an entire row of the figures behind him. “Dema?”

“On the back wall, that symbol drawn in chalk.  It's the same one on Julian's neck and -” I reached out and placed my hand over his heart. “Your chest.  What is it?”

“It's -” he sighed and set the raven back on the shelf, picking up a fox in its place.

“It's also in this book.” I handed him the book that was open on the desk, the one in a language I can't read.  Asra turned the volume over in his hands, thumbing through the pages.

“This is mine. He wrote in my book.” His eyes narrowed in annoyance.  “Of course he did! And dog eared pages as well. Oh!” His eyes widened suddenly.  “Oh, I think I know what he's trying to do.” He closed the book. “Idiot. Fucking idiot.”

“What?”

“If, if he's trying what I think . . . Dema, you're going to have to be awfully persuasive to shout him down.”

“What is doing?”

“I think that he's trying to contact the Hanged Man.”

“Like we did the... The Magician.” I didn’t manage to hide the distaste in my voice.  “But Julian can't use magic!”

“I know.  But death also breaks the boundaries between the realms, and Ilya's affinity is definitely the Hanged Man.” Asra took the raven back down from the shelf.  “It's possible.”

“But he'd be dead.”

“I think he's counting on his mark to heal him.”  He ran his fingers over the raven then tucked it into the bag at his side.  “I didn't say he had a good plan.”


	2. The Price of Forgiveness

I come around in a carriage, my head resting in Asra's lap and Nadia sitting across from me.  Asra is gazing down at me, concern written on all his features. Nadia is staring out the window, looking contemplative.

I groan and sit up, letting Asra wrap both arms around me.  Faust licks my face encouragingly, and curls around my shoulders in her own version of a hug.

“Dema, are you okay?”

“I, I will be.” I rub my temples.  “Maybe.”

The Countess looks over at me, sympathy in her eyes.  “That did not go as I expected, but through no fault of yours.  I'm quite convinced Dr. Devorak innocent, and I do not like the notion of hanging an innocent man.  Even one who seems to desire it.”

“What do we do now?”

Asra sighs.  “I don't remember why Lucio's ritual failed three years ago. If I can find something at the Palace that jogs my memory... It's the only thing I can think of to start with.  At least, it might help us learn how to banish Lucio, but . . . Ilya . . .”

“I'll have Dr. Devorak brought to the Palace.” Nadia offers. “Perhaps he'll be more forthcoming, now that the trial is over.  I don't care to leave him in the Coliseum dungeons, and perhaps the two of you would like a bit of time with him.”

I jump at look at her in surprise.  Asra blushes. She smiles. “I suspected as much.  It's alright. Except -” Covering her face with her hands, she groans. “It, of course, isn't alright. I meant for the trial to model justice for Vesuvia, but it has only accomplished the opposite.”  She looks at us from between her fingers. It's a rare moment of vulnerability for such a stately woman. “I will, of course, assist you in any way I can. You need only ask.”

“Thank you, Nadi."

 

~~~

 

“Have you completely lost your wits? You're going to try to contact one of the major Arcana by dying?”

Julian looks up sullenly from where he's sitting in the edge of the bed.  Nadia has moved him to a guest room, under guard. “The Hanged Man has the cure for the plague.  Don't you see why I have to try this?”

Asra throws his hands out in exasperation.  “You stupid, self sacrificing man! How do you plan to return from the Hanged Man's realm?  You're no good to anyone dead.”

Julian idly picks up a decorative paper weight from the bedside table and cuts his hand open with a sharp edge.  The mark on his neck glows as the superficial cut heals. “You should know, Asra. This spell, this curse you left me with.  If there's an upper limit to what it will heal, I haven't found it yet.”

“Ilya, I didn't give you that.”

Julian's expression is stunned.  “You, you didn't?” 

“No, that mark signifies that you cut a bargain with one of the Arcana.  I couldn't have given it to you. And it tells me nothing about the nature of the bargain.  I have no idea if that is powerful enough to bring you back from the dead.” Asra sits down next to him with a huff, hands clenched into fists and resting on his knees.  “Don’t do this. I can’t bear . . .”

“I have to try.  The plague is coming back, and -”  Julian looks over at me and then back to Asra.  “I'll do anything to prevent what happened before.”

I drag a chair over to the bed and sit down, facing the both of them. “Asra, couldn't we try to reach the Hanged Man by magic?”

He looks up at me, a spark of hope in his eye. “We could try, but I don't have an affinity for the Hanged Man like I do the Magician, and his realm is notoriously difficult to reach, especially without any preparations.”

Julian begins to shake his head. “Too dangerous.”

“And hanging isn't?”

“Well, in the hanging scenario, I'm the only one in -”

I hold up a hand to cut Julian off and look back at Asra.  “But it's possible, right? You know how you could do it?”

“Yes. I think so.”

I sit back in the chair, folding my arms across my chest in preparation for them to both argue with me. “Excellent. Send me with Julian.”

“What, no, absolutely not!”  Julian grabs both my shoulders.  “What if you get hurt?”

“The plague is returning. If the Hanged Man knows the cure, retrieving it is too important to gamble on the chance that this curse if yours will actually bring you back from the dead.”

“But...” He glances to Asra, looking defeated. 

Asra sighs. “She has a point. I don't like it, but she has it.”

“Julian.” I touch one hand to either side of his face, then nudge his eyepatch off.  “Trust me, we've got a better chance of solving this together.”

“I . . . I don't . . . Damn. You're right.”

I kiss him. Briefly. Lips closed.  “It'll be fine. Umm, Asra, do we need to set up anything special.”

Asra shakes his head. “No, nothing we can do quickly will be of much use.”  He scoots back in the bed, crosses his legs in front of him, and pats the side next to him. “Climb up, this will be a little easier if we're all touching.”

We arrange ourselves in a circle, knees touching, holding hands.  Julian on my left; Asra on my right. Asra's hand is relaxed in mine. Julian's is trembling.  I squeeze it and flash him what is, I hope, a smile that is somewhat more confident than what I feel.

“Okay, what I'll do is try to send you through my gate.  Stay together. Dema -” He lets go of our hands and mimes tying a cord around mine. “I'll tie a sort of safety line to you.  Tug on it and I can pull both you back. Or should be able to.” He picks up our hands again. “Just close your eyes and focus on your breath.”

I give Julian's hand another squeeze, and close my eyes, pulling back my awareness to feel of a flowing through my nose and throat and into my lungs. 

“Am I doing this right?”

“You’re doing fine, Ilya.” Asra's voice is warm and sitting and I drift into darkness before opening my eyes underwater. Ah, I remember, the rules here aren't what they are.  I tell myself that I don't need to breathe and float. But Julian doesn't know that, he struggles above me, grabbing my hand and fighting his way to the surface, emerging with a gasp.

“Are you okay?” He grabs my shoulders, peering closely at my face then running his hands down my body.  “We almost drowned. You're really calm for someone who almost drowned.”

“Julian.” I touch his face. “The normal rules don't apply here, we don't actually need to breath.  Look! A moment ago we were in deep water. Now it barely reaches my knees.”

“I . . . Oh, magicky things, why always the magicky things.”

Laughing, I look around. We're in a swamp, Cypress trees stand with us in the still water, surrounded by mist.  It's certainly not as inviting as the Magician's realm. I take Julian's hand in mine; he looks like he could use the reassurance.

“Come on, there's no point in standing still.”

“Wait, what about the line Asra was going to send with us?” 

I hold up my free hand. A delicate, glowing cord is knotted around it trailing off into nothing.  “Right here.” I do feel better knowing that I can tug on it and have Asra pull us out.

“Well.  If the regular rules don't apply, I guess direction doesn't matter. Let's just go -” he looks back over his shoulder.  “That way.”

We pick our way through the bog, finding as we go along, bubbles with random objects caught in the middle of falling apart, or being put back together, depending on how one looks at it.  Julian wants to touch them all, and I have to continue pulling him away. Finally, I see a faint stream of fresh water cutting through the muck. We follow it. It's the closest thing we've seen to a path.

The clear water circles around a massive tree.  When we return to the point where I think we started, a stone stairway has appeared.  Julian shrugs at me, lets go of my hand, and climbs up the stairs before I can stop him.  They crumble under his feet and change into briar bushes, that catch him, suspending him upside down.

“Julian! Why would you . . . ?” I rush around to where he hangs, face at roughly the same height as mine.  He smiles sheepishly.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I look up at the thorny vines.  His legs and one arm are tangled in them.  “Can you get loose?”

He wiggles around, but doesn't fall free. “Doesn't look like it.  Hey, come here.” I take a step closer to him. He somehow gets his free hand to the back of my neck and pulls me close enough to kiss.  I'm surprised, but sink into it after a moment, twining my hands through his hair. After all, time warps in these realms as well.

Pulling back I check his face, his cheeks are red, more I suspect from hanging upside down than the kiss.  He looks disappointed. “I still need to get you down.”

“I mean, you don't have to, at least, not right away.”

I kiss him again, but quickly this time.  “I'm adding hanging you by your feet to my mental list of things to do to you.”  He gapes at me for a moment and then flashes that leering smile of his. I roll my eyes, and think for a moment, before gathering my magic at my palms, creating heat this time, instead of light.  I touch one of the vines and it pulls back. Success.

“Tuck your chin in. I don't know if I can catch you _ , and  _ I’m still a fan of you with an unbroken neck.”

Julian obliges.  I reach as high as I can, managing to touch the vines wrapped around his legs.  He falls free, and I sort of catch him, mostly breaking his fall by tumbling backwards into the muddy water.  He catches himself on his arms before his full weight hits me, ending up with his head just over my chest.

“Hey, there.” He kisses the top of one breast where my shirt has slipped down.

“Hey, yourself.”  I run a hand over the top of his head and lay there in the shallow water, catching the breath that I don't actually need, Julian contentedly resting against me.  “I'm not sure I like this realm much.”

“Hmm.”  He pushes my shirt further aside and kisses me again.  “I'm not sure I mind it.”

I snort. “You are impossible, my darling.”

“I know.  Can't take me anywhere.”  I push him off me before he can get my shirt any lower.  “Alright.” He pouts, but gives me a hand up. “Got to find this Hanged Man.  Save the city. Hero shit.”

“That's my boy!”

This time, when we circle the tree, the clear stream leads forward.  A light behind to flow through the trees, and as we get closer, I can make out a shadowy, human like figure.  I'm about to pick up my pace, when a vine wraps around my ankle.

“Shit.”

Julian turns back, and the same time the vibe begins to pull me down.  “Dema! Julian grabs both my hands in his.”

The raucous caw of a raven sounds above us, turning into a deep laugh.  “Silly children - to visit me empty handed.” Julian's eyes go wide. I pull my right hand of his and snap Asra’s cord into it, pulling hurriedly.  As the Hanged Man’s realm, distorts and fades to black, his voice follows us. 

“I demand more than empty hands.”

 

~~~

 

My eyes snap open in the palace guest room. Asra pulls me into a kiss. Then - not exactly to my surprise - he turns to Julian and does the same.  Julian's eyes - or at least, the one I can see - go wide with shock, then he leans in, bringing his hands to Asra's shoulders and pushing him back against the wall.  Exhausted, I shift my legs around and lay down, head against Julian's thigh and an outstretched hand resting on Asra's.

Eventually they part, staring at other and breathing hard.  Asra looks away first, hands going to the bag still slung around his shoulders, retrieving the carved raven.  He holds it out to Julian who takes it from and turns it over cautiously, as if he’s worried that it will come to life and bite.

“Ilya.”  Asra begins to speak, pauses, and then starts again.  “When I came back and Dema was . . . gone . . . First being with you, you was like a link to her, in some weird way.  Then, it was more, you were the person I was with, but she was still gone, and everything felt incomplete, and wrong, and I put all that on you, Ilya.  I'm sorry. But, finding this carvings, I remember how I felt when I made them. And, I couldn’t give you what you wanted because I didn’t even have it . . .”

Julian cuts him off with another kiss.


	3. Three Points, Where Two Lines Meet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon major character death.

“It didn't work through.  The Hanged Man refused us.  Said he demanded more than empty hands.”  I can't keep the bitterness out of my voice.  I'm developing a deep dislike for the members of the Major Arcana.  Asra may get to take all future card reading business.

“So...”

Julian is sprawled out on the bed, one hand slipped just under the waistband of my skirt, and the other buried in Asra's hair.  “So, we're back to my original plan.”

“No. There's got to be another way.”  Asra sits up, hands going for his bag and his books.  Julian and I exchange a look. I desperately want a different option as well but with the light fading fast in the sky, I don't know what that could be.

“Asra,” I tried to make my voice sound more resolved than I actually felt.  “We can’t let the plague come back.”

“I know . . . but . . .”  He fists his hands in his hair.  Julian touches him, cautiously, as if he’s afraid Asra will break; right now, Julian may be worrying exactly as much as warranted rather than worrying too much.

“What happened before, it can’t happen again.” 

“You’re -” Asra twists around and runs a finger along my jaw.  “You’re right, Ilya.” He reaches out and pulls both of us to him.  “But, I . . . I am so, so very scared.”

 

**~~~**

We're curled up like a pile of puppies - at least we’re still mostly still dressed puppies - when Portia bursts in the room.  “Ilya. We are leaving now.” She looks around the room, and once again, I’m impressed with her poker face. “Come one, Mazelinka’s waiting at the back gate with a carriage, and I can get you out through -”

“Pasha.”  Julian disentangles himself from Asra and me with remarkable speed.  “I can’t leave.”

“What?  You have to.  They’re going to hang you tomorrow at noon.”

“I know.  I, umm. Sit down.”

He quickly explains the plan to her, and since we went to the Hanged Man’s realm empty handed and came back empty handed, it seems that his original plan is the only option left.  Portia’s expression increases in disbelief as he outlines what he thinks will happen. She stares in silence when he finishes.

“ _ Ty s’uma soshyol _ ?”  She switches into their native language, shouting.  “ _ Durak. Idiot! _ ”  The last is clear enough, even if the vowels are pronounced differently.  

“I can’t let the plague come back.  Not if I can stop it. You weren’t here, Pasha.  You didn’t see it.”

“But, but . . . I only got you back.”

_ “Pasha, vsyo budit kharasho!” _

I grab Asra’s hand and lean over, whispering in his ear.  “Why don’t we give them some space?”

He nods in agreement.  “Maybe we can find Lucio’s old dining room.  Something there might jog my memory as to why the ritual went wrong that night.”  We both slide off the bed. Julian looks up at us, with what is possibly panic, and pauses his conversation with Portia.

I embrace him.  “You and Portia need to talk.  And Asra and I need to try to figure out why the ritual went wrong three years ago.”

Asra wraps his arms around both of us.  “We’ll be back soon.”

We leave them behind, still shouting at each other.  I close the door behind us. There are two soldiers standing guard.  One, I recognize from my first day at the palace. 

“Brunhilde, I need you to do me a favor.  The gate at the back of the garden. Outside of it, there’s an old woman waiting with a carriage.  Please get her, or send someone for her. She’ll want to speak with Dr. Devorak.” And probably beat him with a spoon, but I leave that part out.  

Brunhilde gives me a somewhat skeptical look.  “And the Countess?”

“I’ll take full responsibility if the Countess disapproves.  Please.”

“Okay.”  She still looks reluctant but nods in assent.  “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

Asra and I walk away as Brunhilde calls over another guard from down the hall to take her place.  “Do you remember where Lucio’s private dining room was?”

“Probably in his wing.  I can’t imagine the vain ass wanted to be seen in public at that point.”

“You really hate him.”

“Infinitely.”

***

The stairs to Lucio’s wing are as dark and deserted as ever.  I’m not happy to return here. The chance of finding something, anything that might allow to forestall Julian’s hanging is the only reason I’m willing.  Asra doesn’t appear to be any happier about it than I am. He clutches my hand in his, steps determined.

Two glowing eyes emerge from the darkness, along with a low growl.  Asra tenses beside me, but I haven’t yet heard the goat growl. I let go of his hand and climb another step outstretching both of mine in front of me.  “Mercedes, Melchior,” I call softly. “Hey, babies.” There’s a happy yelp, and Mercedes pitches herself down the steps, nosing at my hands. I rub her ears and laugh.

“Damn dogs,”  Asra mutters.

“Ah, they’re not that bad.  They didn’t get any say in who their master was, after all.”  She licks my hand and bounds back up the steps where Melchior, certainly the more skeptical of the two is waiting.  I hitch up my skirt with one hand and continue up the stairs. Asra follows reluctantly. 

The door to Lucio’s bedchamber as been locked.  I try for a minute to flip the mechanism with magic.  Something creates a viscosity - seemingly in the air itself, resisting my manipulations.  I push harder, shoving at the deadbolt itself. The wood around the latch splinters, I perhaps overdid it.  Oh well. I push the door open and the dogs spring in. Melchior leaps onto Lucio’s bed, turning about three times before laying down.  Mercedes prances over to the full length portrait of Lucio on the wall.

Asra looks around the room suspiciously, avoiding the portrait of Lucio on the wall.  “I had hoped I might somehow just remember how to get to the dining chamber from here.”

“No such luck?”

“No.”

“Hmm, maybe the dogs know something.”  Melchior shoots me a look of absolute disdain from the bed, but Mercedes is nosing around the portrait.  I crouch beside her, talking in a voice pitched well above my normal range. “Whatdya think, girlie, know where the super secret dining room is?”  She pushes her nose against my hand, then the corner of the portrait. I reach down running my hand along the edge of the frame. Just back from the corner, I find a button, hidden by the gilding.  When I press it, the portrait swings open, revealing a small entry, just big enough for a single person behind it.

Asra peers over my shoulder.  “Ah, another dark, ominous passage.  Perfect.”

“What’s that?”  Instead of the stale air that I’m expecting, the passage smells of a feast, rich and savory, with the sharp smell of wine overlaying it all.  Beside me, Mercedes, sniffs, then growls low in her throat before both dogs take off, fleeing the bedroom.

“Now it’s extra ominous.”  Asra extends a hand, a sphere of pale lilac light spinning above it.  “Shall we?”

 The stairway curls down into an elaborate dining room, windowless but well lit.  A long table is set for twenty two, each steaming plate is different, presumably selected for the guest in question.  Elevated trays of delicacies parade down the center of the table, tempting with color and texture. I reach out toward a platter of cherry tarts, nearly glowing from the intense red of the berries before thinking better of it.

Next to me, Asra goes suddenly rigid - eyes blank and spine painfully straight.  Something jerks him to the chair to the left of the head of the table. He folds, more than sits, into the chair, and his fingers wrap around a knife and fork, slicing the roasted lizard in front of him.  He stabs a piece of the meat and begins to bring it to his mouth.

“Asra!”  I grab his hand in mine.  He drops the fork. The meal in front of him turns into a rotten, putrid mess, and he shoves himself away from the table, nearly toppling us both over in his haste.

“That . . . that has to be one of the strongest magical compulsions I’ve ever felt.  Thanks. I’m not sure all the wine in the world would have washed the taste of that out of my mouth.”

As I look down the table, I feel room shifting and folding in on itself, much as space and time have when I’ve been in the realms of the Major Arcana.  The dishes change before me. A plate of pasta becomes a wriggling mass of worms. The exoskeleton of a lobster sinks in on itself. The cherry pastries that so tempted me when we first walked into fuzz over with greenish molds that blackens while I watch it.  

“What is this place?  What’s wrong with it?”

“The kind of magic that would be required to bring back someone from the - grant a new body, would have to be incredibly powerful.  I’m not surprised it still lingers, especially if the ritual was never finished.” Asra finds his deck in his bag and removes the Magician card, placing it at the seat he had been pulled into.  “Twenty-two places, twenty-two arcana.” He goes around the table, placing a card at each setting, following their numerical order, until he returns to the head of the table, laying down the empty Fool card.

As he does so, I feel a tug, pulling me toward the head of the table, what by protocol would have been Lucio’s place.  But the Devil card isn’t the one placed here, instead, the Fool. Asra was pulled to the seat of the member of the Arcana that he was to embody.  Was I here as the stand in for the Fool? Innocence, but also naivete and being manipulated by others. Certainly, I feel like I am headed recklessly for the edge of a cliff often enough.

I sink into the velvet chair and look up and out at the table.  The fox headed Magician sits to my left, regarding me with an inscrutable stare.  Beside him is a stately, owl headed woman - the High Priestess and further down, the raven headed Hanged Man who denied Julian and me earlier today.  Other places are filled, but most remain empty - an incomplete table for a ritual that did not go as planned. I look down at my reflection in the empty, polished plate in front of me.  I’m naked, my hair long and tangled wildly around my face, eyes empty of anything except shock and pain. 

I shove back from the table.  The chair topples, and I fall into the floor catching myself on my arms.  Asra is next to me in a moment, pushing my hair back from my face, helping me to sit up.

“Asra, they - the Major Arcana - weren’t all present.  Maybe that’s why the ritual went wrong?”

His eyes narrow, and he purses his lips in annoyance.  “That would have been like Lucio, to press ahead whether the conditions were in place or not.”

“Could he be planning to complete the ritual at the Masquerade?  Drawing the rest of the participants he needs from the guests?”

“Maybe.”  Asra stands and offers me a hand up.  “Which members of the Arcana were missing?”

I go around the table, pointing out the seats that were empty in my vision.  Asra picks up the cards as I go, reviewing them and frowning. “This is quite a few people to identify and warn away, if Lucio is trying to draw participants from the masquerade guests.”

“Maybe we can narrow it down some.  Why did people participate the first time?”

Asra scans the table.  He traces his hand lightly along the back of the High Priestess - Nadia’s - chair.  “Nadia was miserable in her marriage; she was willing to pay any price to get out of it.  And Ilya -” He stops behind the corresponding chair and runs his hands along the back and the sides.  “Was desperate to find a cure for the plague by that point. I think that he felt guilty.”

“Guilty about what?”

There is an abrupt crack, like a clap of thunder.  The place setting at Julian’s seat, flares into a upward tongue of flame.  I clutch at Asra, but it extinguishes itself almost immediately. The ash reforms in a raven black feather and drops the table.  My breath catches in my throat, and I tighten my hands on Asra’s arm.

Asra shakes his head in disbelief.  “Certainly Nadia didn’t move up the execution?” 

“Something has to have happened to Julian.  The warping we felt earlier - could it have been time?”

Asra’s eyes go wide.

We rush up the stairway and out through the deserted corridors of Lucio’s wing.  Nadia is at the foot of the stairs, conferring with two servants. She turns to us, lovely face solemn.  “Ah, there you two are. I was about to arrange a search party for you. I’ve had the guard take Dr. Devorak’s body to the same room he was held in.”  She looks us both over, sympathy in her eyes. “He said to tell you that he expects to see you soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from Alt-J, "Tessellate."
> 
> Completely superfluous confession: Ilya is one of my all time favorite names, and it low key nags me that Ilya doesn't anglicize to Julian. To be fair, Elijah lacks a certain heroic flair as a name.
> 
> Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Say hi on tumblr [@Aria-i-Adagio](aria-i-adagio.tumblr.com).


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